Rioting and a fire in the cells of a Venezuelan police station in the central city of Valencia killed 68 people on Wednesday, according to the government and witnesses.

Families hoping for news outside the police station were dispersed with tear gas and authorities did not give information until late into the evening.

"The State Prosecutor’s Office guarantees to deepen investigations to immediately clarify what happened in these painful events that have left dozens of Venezuelan families in mourning," Chief Prosecutor Tarek William Saab said on Twitter.

Venezuelan prisons are notoriously overcrowded and filled with weapons and drugs. Riots leaving dozens dead are not uncommon.

The discovery of rats and rodent droppings throughout the building at Mollison Elementary School in Bronzeville and two failed health inspections there last fall prompted Chicago Public Schools officials to declare they were ordering an all-hands-on-deck series of inspections citywide.

That “blitz” was supposed to inspect 220 schools to start, CPS said. But despite initially finding that problems such as rodent droppings, pest infestations, filthy food-preparation equipment, and bathrooms that were dirty, smelly and lacked hot water, CPS quietly halted the inspections before completing them all, records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show — shortly after the newspaper requested information on the early results.

CPS provided blitz reports from 125 facilities that show only 34 of those schools passed inspection by inspectors from the district’s facilities department and Aramark, the private company that manages the custodians and oversees food service. And not all of the schools that were re-inspected passed the second time around, according to hundreds of documents and photos taken at nine schools that were provided under the state’s public records act.

The initial findings were deemed “unacceptable and concerning” by Arnie Rivera, CPS’ new chief operating officer. All the failing schools since have been re-inspected so officials can take some action while students are on break this week, he said.

We know where this is headed. The payoffs to the Chicago Teachers Union--rewards from the Democrats for years of political contributions and supplying campaign workers disguised as delayed compensation, that is pensions, are already a tremendous burden to taxpayers.

Other than default, does anyone see a way out for the CPS pension fund? I don't.

Chicago’s pension system has taken another blow as unfavorable investment returns have driven the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund (CTPF) $1 billion deeper into debt.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the pension system for Chicago teachers is now facing an $11 billion shortfall in a time where state law requires the CTPF to be 90% funded by 2059. With no indication of where the money will come from other than tax hikes and budget cuts, the CTPF is in the same predicament as other Illinois pension funds that make up the state’s $130 billion shortfall.

“We are aware of our obligations, and we will continue to meet our obligations for all of the pensions. But I think the biggest plan is to continue to lobby for additional funding to support our schools,” Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson told the Tribune.

The CPS had previously arranged an agreement with the state that deferred its annual pension payments, but once the fund’s health waned due to the deal, the fund has had trouble maintaining its obligations. The Tribune reports that a $700 million-plus contribution to the fund was covered by short-term loans from the district last year. In addition to the loans, the state also agreed to cover about $550 million in CPS pension payments, which will cost the state $230 million per year.

Let's take a look at the CPS CEO's statement again, “But I think the biggest plan is to continue to lobby for additional funding to support our schools.” More money for schools is always "for the kids." Even when the cash is needed for retirees.

A Seaside man detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement outside Clatsop County Circuit Court earlier this month was deported twice before allegedly raping a teenage girl, according to the federal agency.

Anastacio Eugenio Lopez Fabian, 24, allegedly had sex with the girl several times beginning in 2016, when she was under 14 years old. Seaside police arrested him in February after he allegedly assaulted her. He was released the same day after posting $25,000 bail.

He has been charged with two counts of second-degree rape, three counts of third-degree rape, fourth-degree assault and harassment. A mandatory minimum sentence of more than six years in prison applies to second-degree rape convictions.

ICE detained him in the courthouse parking lot as he arrived for a hearing. He is in custody at the private Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, according to the federal agency’s records. Fabian was deported to Guatemala in 2013 and 2014, according to a statement from ICE spokeswoman Carissa Cutrell, who also said the Clatsop County Sheriff’s Office did not alert the agency of his most recent arrest.

One scarred beauty of a school is Ralph Waldo Emerson High School in Gary, Indiana. which closed of mold issues in 2008, one year short of its centennial.

Gary, as we learned in the play and the movie The Music Man, was founded in 1906. It was a city planned by United States Steel, which at the time was the world's largest corporation. Flush with cash, Gary could hire the best people. One of them was William Albert Wirt.

Gary School Superintendent William Wirt used the Ralph Waldo Emerson School to be the first to use his new Work-Study-Play system of education, a "Whole Child" philosophy. This philosophy drew international attention to Emerson.

The building opened in 1909 and included an auditorium, gymnasium, pool, and even a zoo. St. Louis architect William Ittner designed the school. There were over seven laboratories, separate band and orchestra rooms, art studios, and rooms for industrial and household arts. Athletic facilities, advanced for their time, included an indoor swimming pool, and an upstairs running track.

The rock reads, "Emerson School. First Work-Study-Play school. Founded by William A. Wirt. 1908."

The Sometimes Interesting blog says of Emerson that its "Work-Study-Play called for students to be separated into two platoons, the first utilizing academic facilities while the second used the non-academic facilities (gym, workshop, auditorium, and track)."

Among the alumni of Emerson are Academy Award actor Karl Malden and NFL great and actor Alex Karras.

While Emerson's doors are boarded up, much of the rest of the school, including classrooms at ground level, are open to the elements--as well as to vandals and scrappers.

Emerson had a checkered history in regards to race relations. Twice after blacks enrolled in the school there were walkouts of white students. In 1948 it was finally integrated.

In 1981 Emerson closed but a year later it re-opened as a magnet school for the performing arts, eventually accepting high school students.

After its second, and almost certainly, final closing, students were shifted to the Miller neighborhood to attend the new Wirt-Emerson School for the Visual and Performing Arts. But Gary's emergency manager has recommended closure for that school at the end of this academic year.

Saturday, March 24, 2018

By now I'm sure you've leaned that I am a huge Byrds' fan. And I have the pleasure of having as a onetime client of mine a cousin of the leader of that innovative band, Roger McGuinn.

The Byrds covered many songs written by Bob Dylan--here's one that's a bit unique. "This Wheel's 0n Fire," the opening track from Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde, was co-written by Dylan and Rick Danko of The Band. You might be familiar with The Band's take on Music From Big Pink.

CHICAGO (March 22, 2018)--Attorneys for Alaina Hampton announced on Thursday that they have filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. Northern District Court on her behalf against the Democratic Party of Illinois and Friends of Michael J. Madigan, the political action committee of the Democratic Party chairman.

The suit, filed by the law firm of Kulwin, Masciopinto & Kulwin, LLP, points to Hampton’s experience being sexually harassed over the course of five months while she was employed by the Democratic Party of Illinois and Friends of Michael J. Madigan. Hampton worked as a political staffer and and campaign manager for the defendants from 2012-2017, managing a number of successful and notable campaigns.

"This case is about protecting victims of sexual harassment from retaliation," said attorney Shelly Kulwin. "If victims who speak out about sexual harassment are not protected from retaliation, they will stop speaking out. Too often, sexual harassment exists in the workplace because the perpetrators are protected and the victims are punished."

As a result of the defendants’ "discriminatory and retaliatory conduct," the complaint seeks damages for Hampton, citing "injury to her career and her reputation, as well as other injuries for which she is entitled to actual, compensatory and punitive damages, as well as equitable relief."

"Not only did the defendants completely fail to respond to my reporting of that sexual harassment, they retaliated against me for it," said Hampton. "I was forced to leave a job that I loved, derailing my career path. My reputation was sullied, and I lost out on key job opportunities as word spread that I was persona non grata with these defendants."

But, Hampton noted, the suit is about more than her own experience.

"It is also about the countless other women who have been subject to this type of harassment," said Hampton. "Not all of those women have been able to come forward as I have--but they are watching closely to see how my case is handled. It is my hope that by filing suit, I can create space for more women to feel that their voices can be heard."

Good people in the Chicago area are disgusted with rife corruption, rampant cronyism, and sheer incompetence among the politicians that are running America's third-largest metropolitan area into the ground.

The Chicago Tribune reports that data released Thursday show Cook County lost more than 20,000 residents in 2017. Data also show that about 13,300 residents left the Chicago metropolitan area, which includes the city of Chicago, its suburbs and parts of Indiana and Wisconsin.

The metropolitan area has seen declines in population in recent years. It lost more than 11,000 residents in 2016 and nearly 3,400 residents in 2015.

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

"Speaker for Life" Michael Madigan (D-Chicago), who is also the chairman of the state Democratic Party, has another problem besides the defeat in Tuesday's Democratic Primary of his crony, Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios, who is the chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party.

WHERE: 161 N. Clark Street, 12th Floor, Chicago
WHEN: Thursday, March 22, 2018, 11AM
WHAT: Attorneys for Alaina Hampton will announce that they have filed suit in federal court on her behalf against the Democratic Party of Illinois and Friends of Michael J. Madigan, the political action committee of the Democratic Party chairman. Hampton shook Illinois politics to its core in February when she came forward with her experience of sexual harassment while working for the Democratic Party of Illinois. Hampton brings the suit after filing a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in February.

Monday, March 19, 2018

If you somehow remain undecided on who to for in Tuesday's Republican gubernatorial primary in Illinois, take this information to heart. Liberals dislike the only conservative running--reformer Jeanne Ives.

Two of the homicides stand out. A 17-year-old was fatally shot while driving on the Eisenhower Expressway on the West Side. And on the Near North Side, a group of five gunned down a man sitting in a car.

Of the other killings, one took place in Austin on the West Side--the other four were South Side slayings.

"Heroin users all over Chicagoland," my good friend Victor Maggio spells out in his final Bloody Chicago installment of his Top Ten Most Violent Neighborhoods in Chicago series, "usually go to Austin first before anywhere else because it is so plentiful."

"The gangs in Austin have had decades of experience and have the most sophisticated drug operation in the entire city," he explains.

Austin, on the West Side adjacent to Oak Park, is Chicago's most violent neighborhood.

As he has done in his previous nine episodes, Maggio recounts the history of this neighborhood, its rise and its fall. He also explores the creation of the welfare state and how it has devastated America's inner cities and the black family.

Hollywood phonies who glorify violence and rap music that celebrate the killing of cops and the abasement of women play a role in this crisis too.

"When you put it all together," Maggio declares "all of this has contributed to the creation of a nihilistic generation of young people that are emerging because of the consequences of destructive liberal policies that have done massive damage to the minority communities of Chicago and across the country."

Racism of course is at the core of this problem, of course. And yes, there is some good news as many blacks and Hispanics are doing well. But America can do much better.

Friday, March 16, 2018

The Justice Department dealt a stunning blow to former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe on Friday night, firing him just days before he would have been eligible for a lifetime pension after determining that he lied to investigators reviewing the bureau’s probe of Hillary Clinton’s email server.

"Pursuant to Department Order 1202, and based on the report of the Inspector General, the findings of the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility, and the recommendation of the Department’s senior career official, I have terminated the employment of Andrew McCabe effective immediately," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement.

"After an extensive and fair investigation and according to Department of Justice procedure, the Department’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) provided its report on allegations of misconduct by Andrew McCabe to the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR)," Sessions said.

"The FBI’s OPR then reviewed the report and underlying documents and issued a disciplinary proposal recommending the dismissal of Mr. McCabe. Both the OIG and FBI OPR reports concluded that Mr. McCabe had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor − including under oath − on multiple occasions.

A black woman is angry that beauty products popular among African Americans are locked up at a big box store, probably because they are among the most stolen items at that outlet. Men's razors, Mark Dice explains, are often secured behind glass for the same reason.

But that doesn't stop gadfly attorney Gloria Allred from parachuting onto the scene.

Thursday, March 15, 2018

The Cook County assessor's office has always been a cash cow for the Democrats. And there has never been a Republican assessor in Crook County.
The assessor is Joe Berrios, who is also the chairman of the Chicago Machine, formally known as the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization. He was nominated for that post by Illinois Democratic Party boss Michael Madigan, whose tiny law firm presumably makes a fortune appealing taxes assessed by Berrios' office.

Madigan is the "speaker-for-life" of the Illinois House of Representatives.

If you live in Cook County and you are voting Democratic you are voting for Berrios. If you live in Illinois and you are voting Democratic you are voting for Madigan.

In the first effort to measure the cost of Cook County’s error-ridden assessment system under Assessor Joseph Berrios, a new study estimates that at least $2.2 billion in property taxes was shifted from undervalued Chicago homes onto overvalued ones between 2011 and 2015.

Because the county’s assessment system is skewed in favor of high-priced homes, the errors amount to a staggering transfer of wealth that benefited Chicago’s most affluent homeowners at the expense of people who own lower-priced homes.

The study, released Thursday by the Municipal Finance Center at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, was conducted by Professor Christopher Berry, a critic of the assessor’s office who testified at a County Board hearing in July about flaws in the county’s assessment system.

The analysis involved calculating a citywide fair tax rate using the tax bills of homes that sold, then seeing how those tax bills differed from the amount that would be expected if the assessor valued property fairly.

Cook County is losing population. Illinois is losing population. Surprised? You shouldn't be.

President Trump's new tax law doesn't allow for the deduction of state and local taxes for wealthy people on their federal income tax returns. But those rich folks underwrite the high-spending by leftists in states such as New Jersey and California. Stuart Varney reports on an idea of Democrats in those states to classify these tax payments as chariatable contributions. That won't pass federal muster, but the proposal shows us what hypocrites the liberals are.

U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush must give up 15 percent of his congressional salary to begin repaying more than $1 million he owes on a delinquent bank loan to his now-shuttered Englewood church, a judge in Chicago ordered Wednesday.

Cook County Circuit Judge Alexander White ordered the garnishment of more than $2,100 a month from the South Side Democrat’s $174,000 annual federal pay in what was another setback for the longtime congressman-turned-pastor who once promised that the house of worship he founded would help rebuild Englewood.

Though rare, it isn’t the first time a congressman’s wages have been garnished. In one case, in 2014, it happened to U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat who owed more than $1.3 million from a loan for a carwash.

Rush was ordered last June to repay the loan made more than a dozen years ago to buy the limestone, Gothic-style building at 6430 S. Harvard Ave. for what became Beloved Community Church of God in Christ.

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

NIgel Farage, the former leader of the UK Independence Party, which led the successful Brexit drive, tells us why a majority of Britons voted to bail out on the European Union in the latest PragerU video.

Oh, here is something I didn't know. Once a month all of the paperwork of the European parliament is removed from Brussels and moved in trucks to a small city in southeastern France.

And then it's moved back to Brussels. To end this wastefulness, all 28 member nations have to agree to it. France certainly won't.

This is done by a group that lectures everyone else about their carbon footprint.

The parliament is powerless--but the unelected elitist EU bureaucrats are not.

Hillary Clinton will go to her grave blaming everyone but herself to her defeat in the 2016 presidential race.

She won places that she says are "dynamic" and that Trump's campaign "was looking backwards."

Clinton won in states like bankrupt-in-all-but-name states such as Illinois, California, and Connecticut.

Fox News' Greg Gutfeld explains that Hillary, like most leftists, sees groups--blacks, whites, women, gays--not individuals. And that is one of the reasons why Republicans control the presidency, Congress, most governorships and most state legislatures.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

The Chicago Defender played a key role in supporting civil rights during the Great Migration era, the Emmett Till murder was one of the atrocities it reported on. But in recent years has been a hack publication.

A candidate for the Illinois House’s 5th District seat is being accused of paying for good publicity from a now ex-editor at one of the city’s most prominent African-American newspapers – a charge both the candidate and editor deny.

Questions have been raised about the arrangement between candidate Dilara Sayeed and former Chicago Defender Managing Editor Mary Datcher, who was paid $10,000 by Sayeed’s campaign.

The payment, which was first reported by the Chicago Crusader, came in November 2017. A day later, the Defender wrote a positive article about Sayeed’s campaign.
As founder and principal of On the Street Promotions, Datcher was tapped to help the Sayeed campaign spread its platform throughout the various communities that make up the state’s 5th District.

"Late last week, the Chicago Defender became aware of a potential employee matter regarding our managing editor's outside business and client relationships. After a few days of due diligence, our investigation found that there was no evidence of wrong doing on behalf of The Chicago Defender, however, we determined that it was necessary to take action and terminate the employee for violation of company policy and procedures."

Sayeed is a Democrat running for an open seat in the General Assembly.

Saturday, March 10, 2018

Richard and Linda Thompson performed many touching songs during their career, which covered most of the 1970s. In 1975, when "A Heart Needs A Home" was recorded for British television, both of them by this time had joined a Sufi Muslim community, which explains Linda's head scarf and Richard's quasi-turban you see here.

Friday, March 09, 2018

Gary is Indiana's reply to Detroit. After its population peaked at 175,000 in 1960, now only about 75,000 people live in what was once the Hoosier State's second largest city.

Like New York, it's most famous street in Broadway. And there the similarities end.

Broadway was being repaved when I visited in November. Oh, the smoke. No, Gary is not on fire here. Those ugly plumes are coming from US Steel's sprawling Gary Works plant, the largest employer in town.

The billows lasted about a minute. I'm not sure what it was--but a description from the Windsor Star about a similar looking discharge from Detroit's Zug Island US Steel plant is probably on the money as to what we see here.

The black plumes come from two blast furnaces at U.S. Steel which are equipped with bleeder valves designed to open when the pressure gets too high. This prevents damage to the furnaces but also sends particles into the air. A bleeder valve will open for a minute or two releasing a cloud.

There is a big boom and then "it blows all this smoke,: said Gregg Ward, operator of the Detroit-Windsor truck ferry located near the U.S. Steel plant in Detroit.

There can be a week or more without an occurrence, then it might happen several times in a day, he said. He described the particles in the smoke as "fine metallic pieces" that stick to things.

Only didn't I didn't a boom.

Oh, I've gotten off topic. That's the former Michael's Norman Furniture at 1519 Broadway. Burglary must have been a problem there as the store has pull-down window gates in front. Next to it is another abandoned storefront, belonging to United Cleaners.

You may have to click on the photo to make it larger, but you'll see, at least in autumn, Central Paint & Supply Company a block south was holding a going out of business sale.

Probably every town in America in the 1920s with 50,000 or more residents had a movie palace that doubled as a vaudeville theater. Gary's showplace was the Palace Theater, which opened in 1925. It closed in 1972. To be fair, many, perhaps most of these theaters went dark after television sets became the focal point of most living rooms, so Gary shouldn't be clobbered over the demise of the Palace.

But hang in there, I'll start slapping Gary around soon.

Donald Trump, when he was a real estate mogul, also owned the Miss USA pageant, which amazingly was held in Gary at the Genesis Convention Center in 2001 and 2002. For the latter beauty display, the future president fixed up the front of the Palace and placed "Jackson Five Tonite" on the marquee. The Jacksons of course were from Gary but moved away shortly after signing with Motown in the late 1960s. After Michael Jackson's death in 2009, according to Wikipedia, new placards declaring "Jackson Five Forever" were placed on the marquee. As you can see none of those signs remain.

Here's a place that is still a going-concern, the Gary-owned Genesis Convention Center. While it's a multi-purpose arena that holds sporting events, and of course once hosted Miss USA, as a convention complex it's an utter failure because a hotel was never part of the development. As someone who worked in the hospitality industry for over a decade, I can tell you that a convention facility without a hotel within walking distance is a financial sinkhole. It's like a circus tent without stakes or poles.

Who financed this boondoggle?

A brainchild of Gary's mayor for over twenty years, Richard Hatcher, the center opened in 1974. Hatcher was one of the first black mayors of a major US city. While he was a nationally-known civil rights spokesman, perhaps he should have tended matters at home. Genesis, as you guessed by its name, was constructed to revitalize Gary. As for the results? The city's current mayor said last year, "It is a tremendous drain on the city." And Gary is circling that drain.

If you look closely you'll see that the "N" in "convention" is missing.

Peacock Cleaners by the looks of its layout might have serviced the washing of uniforms of the many factory workers in Gary's golden era.

Dry cleaning is a tough business to maintain. Smith's Cleaner's couldn't survive either.

On the 700 block of Washington stands the long-gone Grantham Dodge Plymouth. Oh, what's a Plymouth? It was a Chrysler Motors brand that competed with Ford and Chevrolet.

I believe there is a tree growing out of the second floor at Grantham. Oh, just as with multi-floor automobile factories, multiple-level car dealerships are at a serious disadvantage compared to a spread-out single-floor operations. Too much time is wasted moving cars from floor to floor, and elevators break down a lot and are expensive to maintain.

A look inside.

Two blocks to the south is this pile of rubble.

We are headed towards Broadway again.

Don't laugh. Signage, such as this one for this long-shuttered wig shop, was cutting edge 60 years ago.

Is that a former department store at 8th and Broadway?

Over on 25th Street and Tyler is this bricked-off storefront. Yes, not boarded-up but bricked off. When you own a property and it has to be bricked off, you know you have a distressed property on your hands.

On 25th and Jackson, just three blocks from the old Michael Jackson home, is the former Theodore Roosevelt Brach of the Gary Public Library. Notice the rotting roof. Perhaps some of the Jacksons checked out books here.

Gary's former Union Station is easy to see if you are driving on the Indiana Toll Road but very hard to locate street-level on Broadway. Parking? Forget about it. I left my Honda Civic over near City Hall. I have more photographs of the old train station here.

President Trump has agreed to sit-down with his North Korean nemesis Kim Jong-Un sometime in the next two months to discuss stripping the hermit nation of its nuclear arsenal, it was announced Thursday.

The historic meeting was brokered by the South Korean government, which delivered the invitation to the White House and divulged the details outside the West Wing.
“He expressed his eagerness to meet President Trump as soon as possible,” South Korean National Security Director Chung Eui-yong said of Kim.

“President Trump appreciated the briefing and said he would meet Kim Jong-Un by May to achieve permanent denuclearization.”

The Republican Jewish Coalition is calling for the resignation of seven Democratic members of Congress whom it claims are "connected" to controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. The group describes him as a "known anti-Semite."

Farrakhan has routinely spoke disparagingly about Jews over the years, as well as white people, in general. He was thrust into the mainstream spotlight again this week after excerpts from a speech he gave last week on the Nation of Islam's Saviour's Day surfaced online. During the speech, he once again described Jewish people -- who he says "are my enemy" -- in a pejorative manner.

Bruce Rauner, who National Review says is the worst Republican governor in nation, has been running ads against his conservative opponent, Jeanne Ives, who I support, with the ludicrous claim that she is a "lackey" for Democratic party boss and state House "speaker for life" Michael Madigan.

A political committee that has supported Michael Madigan and a number of other politicians of both parties gave money to Jeanne Ives. And records show the contributions to Ives total $6,900, a far cry from the $2.5 million she has received from a conservative businessman who once was a major donor to Rauner.

Ives was once a loyal supporter of Rauner in the Illinois House, but broke with the governor last year because she claimed he had become too liberal on social issues. Central to her complaint was Rauner’s signing of abortion rights and immigrant rights legislation that Ives opposed and Madigan backed.

That is hardly a portrait of a Madigan lackey. Indeed, it is the opposite.

North Korea is willing to hold talks with the United States on denuclearization and will suspend nuclear tests while those talks are under way, the South said on Tuesday after a delegation returned from the North where it met leader Kim Jong Un.

North and South Korea, still technically at war but enjoying a sharp easing in tension since the Winter Olympics in the South last month, will also hold their first summit in more than a decade next month at the border village of Panmunjom, the head of the delegation, Chung Eui-yong, told a media briefing.

"North Korea made clear its willingness to denuclearize the Korean peninsula and the fact there is no reason for it to have a nuclear programme if military threats against the North are resolved and its regime is secure," the head of the delegation, Chung Eui-yong, told a media briefing.

"The North also said it can have frank talks with the United States on denuclearization and the normalisation of ties between North Korea and the United States," Chung added.

Monday, March 05, 2018

Who are the 'Big Dogs' in 2017 – our list of the most highly compensated public employees in Illinois local government? It's a who's who of public servants – but most you've never heard of – who learned how to game the system for personal gain.

The latest salary and compensation data captured by our organization and posted at OpenTheBooks.com from fiscal year 2017 shows Illinois local governments needs far more scrutiny. With many Americans focused on Washington, D.C., citizens aren’t doing enough to stop taxpayer abuse in their own backyards, in their own neighborhoods.

In Illinois, 144 employees at local units of government made more than $190,000 and out-earned every governor. These highly compensated public employees work for municipalities, counties, health clinics, forest preserves, water, park, airport, and mass transit districts, and even some school districts.

More...

Not only are taxpayers forced to fund these administrators’ massive salaries, but, in some case, they also fund the pricey mortgages for their homes. Taxpayers are literally subsidizing housing expenses with loan forgiveness built into employment contracts.

Viewers were promised an Oscars broadcast with positivity and inclusion. But like an alcoholic who promises no more drinking and then guzzles another beer, Hollywood can't control itself. Host Jimmy Kimmel, a hardened leftist, led the barrage of attacks on President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Fox News Viewers.

Victor Maggio's Bloody Chicago countdown is nearly finished. Garfield Park--both east and west--is Chicago's second most violent neighborhood. Graced by the beautiful and expansive namesake park at it center, Garfield Park is otherwise surrounded by misery.

Maggio also explores good reasons for community mistrust of the Chicago Police in minority neighborhoods--a few bad apples such as torturer Victor Burge, drug dealer Joseph Miedzianowski, jewel thief William Hanhardt, and of course Jason Van Dyke, who faces murder charges over the death of Laquan McDonald.

But most cops are just trying to do their jobs and put away the bad guys.

On Wednesday at the US Capitol President Donald J. Trump paid his respects and spoke of the great works of the Reverend Billy Graham, who was only the fourth private citizen to lay in state at the Capitol.

Friday, March 02, 2018

Normally I oppose naming things, buildings and the like, after living people. But the annoyance factor will be so high with leftists, I have to throw my support on this idea, which involves a road I've driven on.

A state lawmaker known for fighting the federal government over public lands wants to rename a southern Utah highway after President Donald Trump.

Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, introduced a bill Thursday that would rename a route winding through some of the state's most spectacular scenery "Donald J. Trump Utah National Parks Highway."

Noel sees the designation as a thank you to the president for shrinking the Grand-Staircase-Escalante National Monument, something he said other presidents wouldn't do over the years.

"Just for me personally, he’s one of my heroes that he stood up and did this," Noel said. "I know people have a lot of negative things to say about him. Nobody’s perfect. I’m not dwelling on those things. I dwell on the things he’s done for my state and my constituents."

YouTube, Mark Dice tells us, recently hired 10,000 social justice warrior types to crack down on conservative channels. One trick of the left, and I hear this all of hem time, is to label any ideas they don't like as "hate speech."

Thursday, March 01, 2018

Local businesses are paying for armed guards to patrol State Street in the Loop so shoppers and pedestrians feel safe coming downtown.

The guards are known as "street ambassadors," and they will be able to make arrests.

Thursday is the first day for the security detail, now out patrolling the State Street corridor thanks to the Chicago Loop Alliance.

"The Chicago Loop Alliance, their whole purpose is making the downtown Loop a more livable, workable safe friendly, inviting environment and I think that clearly adds to that," Jean de St. Aubin, executive director of the Gene Siskel Film Center.

US Rep Matt Gaetz (F-FL) just reintroduced--word for word--a 2013 bill making the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) judges more transparent. The original bill's sponsor as Adam "Schiff for Brains" Schiff (D-CA), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee and an gadfly critic of President Donald J. Trump.

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